References to a money-transfer feature are sitting inside the code of TikTok's current US iPhone app, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. The feature would let users send each other money through direct messages. TikTok told Bloomberg it is not being tested.
What the code describes
The design in the code will look familiar to anyone who has used a payment app. A sender could attach a message to the money, and the recipient would get a prompt to tap and accept it, much the way Venmo works. It would run on TikTok Pay, the payment system TikTok already operates in Southeast Asia to handle TikTok Shop purchases.
Code in an app is not a product. TikTok's on-record line is that the feature is not being tested, which points to early internal work rather than anything close to a launch, and there is no timeline for a public release or any commitment that one comes at all. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TechCrunch, which wrote the report up on Tuesday.
The app that keeps taking on new jobs
TikTok is still widely described as a social media company, and the feature list has been drifting away from that description for years. It now carries in-app search, TikTok Shop, a local discovery map, games and hotel bookings, and payments would be the next addition. Payments between users would put it up against Venmo and Zelle, which is a different competitive set to the one a video app usually worries about.
It would not be the first social platform to make the move. X launched X Money to let users send each other money. The logic is the same in both cases: a platform that already holds a user's attention, their friends list and, through shopping features, their card details is a short step from holding the transaction too.
For South African readers the feature is not imminent in any market, let alone this one. The reporting covers the US iPhone app, and TikTok Pay's existing footprint is described only as Southeast Asia, with no specific countries named.
Reuters reported earlier this year that TikTok applied to Brazil's central bank for approval to operate as a financial technology company offering lending and payment services.
